


I'll be right behind you

by vindice



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, Canon Related, Canonical Character Death, Diego and Ben are Good Siblings, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, M/M, So is Five, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, and that's the tea, he's just old and cranky and stressed out about the end of the world, more like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25592893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vindice/pseuds/vindice
Summary: He meets the love of his life. (Too bad it’s in times of war.)
Relationships: Dave Katz/Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 2
Kudos: 153
Collections: One-Shot Goldmine





	I'll be right behind you

**Author's Note:**

> Are we excited about s2 dropping today or what?!
> 
> Disclaimer: I wrote this last week. I was just too lazy to finish editing it until now. (I used the Canon Divergence tag, but just in case.) 
> 
> This was going to be part of a reincarnation au but then got out of hand so here’s on its own. [ _blows kiss_ ]
> 
> Most of the dialogue is taken from season one, but not all. You’ll know it when you see it.

Klaus’ life begins the day he escapes captivity from a shitty motel room.

(It ends not ten months later.)

* * *

He lands himself into the sixties after inadvertently stealing a time traveling machine from the nazi puppets torturing him. (The time traveling part is the only accidental thing about that.)

He meets the love of his life. (Too bad it’s in times of war.)

They have ten wonderful, glorious months together. Even amidst the horrors of combat, they are the best of Klaus’ life.

Ben is thrilled—ecstatic, even. It’s the longest Klaus has gone without drugs since he was still a teenager living under Dear Dad’s thumb. 

He also loves Dave, not only because he’s good for Klaus, but because he’s good _to_ Klaus.

Dave is kind, and sweet, and funny and brave and oh so patient.

Klaus has seen him evacuate civilians from battle zones and use his body as a human shield without a second’s thought. Once he tackled Klaus to the ground and covered him with his body when a grenade went off too close for comfort.

He’s given his rations to one of the youngest recruits when theirs were stolen, and kindly hugged them when they looked ready to cry because they left Dave without food for the day—as if Klaus was ever going to let that happen. Dave had promptly winked at Klaus like he knew what he was thinking, before reassuring the young soldier that it was okay, he wasn’t going to go to sleep without dinner.

Dave keeps the ghosts at bay. It’s like he knows when Klaus has had a long day and needs a distraction, when he needs an anchor. 

On those days he just holds Klaus’ hand, in the space between their shitty mattresses, and talks in hushed whispers about his family and the place where he grew up. He tells Klaus about Wisconsin, about how he’s lived there all his life. He tells him the diner he and his sister used to frequent downtown has the best hamburgers in the whole world. He also says he thinks Klaus would totally love their milkshakes, especially the strawberry one.

Those nights Klaus falls asleep breathing a little easier, and if he holds on to Dave’s hand a little too tight, well. Dave holds back just as much.

Then there’s also the looks. Dave always stares at Klaus fondly, like he’s not just a hot mess that showed up out of nowhere, some addict he met in the process of detoxing. No, he looks at Klaus like he’s a puzzle he’s happy to decipher.

Ben says Dave looks at him like he thinks Klaus hung the moon and the stars.

Klaus certainly looks at Dave like he’s the only good thing left in this world.

(Sometimes, Dave even makes him feel like Klaus is something worth looking at.)

* * *

It doesn’t last. (He should have known.)

Dave dies.

Klaus goes back to his family with Dave’s blood still in his hands and the cursed briefcase clutched to his chest like a lifeline. (He destroys it as soon as he can. Smashes it into the sidewalk in an attempt to outweigh the grief threatening to choke him. He shatters it the same way his heart did as he held Dave in his arms while he took his last shivering breath.)

Ben tries to talk to him on their way to the mansion. (It’s not home. Home was warm and had eyes made of skies, freckled skin and pure sunshine for a smile. Home was hope personified, all the good things in the cosmos wrapped in a person thrown amidst chaos. Home had a pair of arms that held him together late at night, lips that breathed air into his lungs until he could respire again.)

(Home died in Vietnam back in the sixties.)

Klaus can’t bring himself to look at his brother’s ghost—it’s too soon, too close to home—not until he gets into the bathtub and drowns out all the sounds, at least.

* * *

It doesn’t work. The war followed him through time and space.

(He still has the proof that Dave existed splashed onto his skin.)  
  


* * *

Only Five and Diego notice something’s happened, something’s wrong. 

Five knows, of course he does. Addicts—it takes one to know one, after all. Klaus leaves before he gives in to the urge of shoving his brother’s head through the wall. Nothing good can come of it; either he ends with a hole in his room, or they end up killing each other.

Five’s been gone for a long time, and Klaus doesn’t blame him, not really, not any more than he blames their father, but his brother’s priorities don’t include consoling Klaus at the moment, and that’s actually something Klaus could do with.

Diego’s do, though. Amidst his own pain, Diego stops for a moment and _sees._

He waits for Klaus when he asks for a ride, and any other day Klaus would relish in the soft spot his brother has for him, but right now all he wants is to snatch another bottle from Dad’s cabinet and drink it all in one go.

He’ll have to make do with the one he stole earlier.

“You okay?” Diego asks as they’re in the car.

Klaus doesn’t answer. He keeps looking out the window.

“Wow. This is a first.” Diego is trying to lighten up the somber mood, Klaus can tell, even with three quarters of a bottle in his system. “My brother Klaus is silent. Last time you were this quiet, we were twelve,” Diego narrates. “Ran down the stairs wearing Grace’s heels, tripped over, and broke your jaw. How long was it wired shut again?”

Klaus rolls his eyes halfheartedly. “Eight weeks.”

“Eight glorious weeks of bliss,” Diego teases.

Klaus perks up when he sees it. “Hey, just… just drop me off here.”

If Diego has questions, he doesn’t voice them. He just parks the car and does as asked.

“You sure you’re okay, man?” Diego asks, but Klaus just sighs, already out of the car.

Klaus is sniffling and blinking back tears before reaching the door to Veterans of Foreign Wars.

* * *

He takes a few shots before moving to the board, and he is not in any way prepared to see him there, but that’s also all he wanted to to begin with.

 _Dave…_ He touches the picture reverently as the tears spill, shoulders starting to shake with the sobs wracking his body.

A hand falls heavily on his shoulder and Klaus starts, waiting for a fight, only to groan at the person behind him.

“Just go away, please.” Klaus turns around and wipes his tears.

Diego squeezes his shoulder. “Not until you talk to me.”

Klaus sighs. “Is that a threat?” Whatever that means coming from Diego. “You threatening me?”

And then an asshole comes up to them, telling them they can’t be there when Klaus has every right as _him_ to be standing in that bar.

Diego tries to do damage control but the asshole is much of a, well, an asshole, and Klaus loses it.

* * *

(And of course his brother has his back when his emotions get the best of Klaus and he picks a fight.)

* * *

“You got a big mouth, you know that?” Diego says later in the car, when Klaus stops giggling. It only sets him off again, especially because that’s Diego’s _you’re a fucking idiot and I don’t know why I love you_ tone.

“Oh, wow,” Klaus mocks. “What a shocking revelation, Diego.”

It only irks Diego more. “Oh, everything is just a big joke to you isn’t it?” he slaps Klaus’ hand as soon as he sees him fiddling with a package. He rips the pills out of Klaus’ hands and Klaus bangs his fists in frustration. “Would you stop it?!” Diego says angrily, “Why are you putting this shit in your body?” to which Klaus just blows a raspberry.

Diego frowns at him before trying to divert the situation.

“Check this out,” he says, patting his stomach. “My body is a temple. All that shit you do, man, it’s just weakness.”

Klaus stretches in his seat. “Oh, wow, beautiful,” Klaus deadpans. He slips his hand into his pocket. “Well, weakness feels so good.”

Diego smacks him over the head when Klaus gets out another packet, making him drop the pills again. “What’s goin’ on with you? Huh?”

Klaus bristles. “Don’t hit me, asshole!”

Diego’s had enough. He raises his voice over Klaus and gets all in his face before gesturing towards the Vet Bar.

“Don’t tell me everything’s alright, because I saw you in there and you were crying!”

“Because I lost someone!” Klaus’ voice wavers and his chest constricts.

Diego stares at him, mouth stopping around words as he looks at Klaus in a different light. Klaus has to look away.

“I lost someone.” Klaus says in a fragile whisper. He stares at his lap. “The only...” he breathes in sharply and sighs. It’s not a burden to confess; the hard part is having to admit it when he’s lost him. “The only person I’ve ever truly loved more than myself.”

Diego keeps still, all the fight going out of him. Klaus takes this as his chance to finally pop a pill into his mouth and swallow.

Diego is quiet for a moment before saying in a raspy voice, “Well, you’re luckier than most.”

Klaus looks at him when he doesn’t immediately continue. His brother stares back. He looks at Klaus like he’s fortunate, and maybe he is.

“When _you_ lose someone,” Diego starts, “At least you can… see them whenever you want.”

They stare at each other, and Klaus feels something not quite warm, but not cold either, unfurl under his collarbone.

For a moment Klaus doesn’t feel like he’s drowning.

Just like that, Diego offers Klaus comfort in his own way.

* * *

Klaus dreams about Dave.

He sees him in each and every space.

He’s in the walls of Klaus’ room, in every corner, at every turn. Dave is the warmth that pools in his sternum when it gets too much. He’s under the covers when Klaus hides his face, smiling brightly and looking tenderly at him. It’s his touch Klaus feels against his cheek, drying the tears he sheds.

But when he opens his eyes there’s nothing there.

It’s the first time Klaus actually wishes he was being haunted by a ghost. Being haunted by a memory is a thousand times worse.

* * *

He’s reaching for the pills hidden under his mattress when Dave’s gorgeous face flashes through his head.

Traitorous, traitorous mind.

Ben has his disappointed face on—he’s sitting on a corner with his arms crossed—when he takes notice of this fact. He seems to put two and two together really fast.

“He wouldn’t want you to destroy yourself, you know?”

Klaus has never hated his brother more.

(He still gets up and flushes the little bag down the toilet, remembering their first kiss all the while.)

He stares at the bowl until Luther walks in and says the apocalypse is in three days.

* * *

Klaus takes advantage of Diego and Luther yelling at each other to sit down for a moment and take a steadying breath.

“You don’t look so hot,” Ben says, concern clear in his face.

“What makes you say that?” Klaus asks. Never mind the fact that he feels like dying. “I feel great.”

“You know, you don’t have to do this alone,” says Ben, earnest in a way Klaus can’t bear right now. “I know how important this is to you.”

Klaus stands up, both to run from this conversation and because Diego has finally had enough of Luther, which makes it acceptable for Klaus to leave.

He sighs, the breath of fresh air momentarily settling his stomach. Ben follows, like he always does. Luther calls out his name but Klaus ignores him until he yells at him.

“So, what?” Luther asks. “You’re giving up on the world, too?”

Klaus thinks about the curve of Dave’s smile, the light going out of his precious eyes.

Yeah, pretty much.” Klaus says without hesitating. “Yeah. Mm-hmm.”

“So that’s it,” says Luther. Klaus can tell he’s steadily growing frustrated. “You’re cool with us all dying in three days?”

Klaus doesn’t have neither the energy or the time for one of Luther’s guilt-trips.

He turns around and walks away.

* * *

He goes to Diego for help.

“I need someone to take away my options,” Klaus says, bordering on frantic. He’s not above begging today.

“Fine,” Diego says, because he’s a good brother and understands, even if not completely.

* * *

“That’s it,” Klaus says as Diego ties him up. “Tighter and higher.”

Diego stops. He stares at Klaus blankly before pulling the rope tighter.

Klaus wheezes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“If I see a boner, I’m out,” Diego threatens, only half joking.

Klaus laughs, despite everything.

“End of the world and you wanna get sober all of a sudden,” his brother mutters. Ben watches them from across the room with a solemn expression. “Don’t get me wrong, man. Good by you. But I’d think you’d wanna pop every pill on the planet.”

The irony doesn’t fly past Klaus.

“Oh, the thought did cross my mind, believe me, but…” Klaus sighs. It’s more of a steadying breath than anything else. “There’s something I need to do, and the whole pesky thing doesn’t seem to work unless I’m sober.”

“Is this about conjuring the one you lost?” Diego asks, focusing on the rope and not looking at him, but his voice has gone an octave lower.

He appreciates his brother trying not to make a big deal out of this. He doesn’t want to be treated like he’s made of glass and on the edge of breaking, even if that’s exactly how he feels.

“What was her name?” Diego asks when Klaus only sighs again.

Klaus closes his eyes, reliving once more the time they spent together. He sees blond curly hair, hears melodious laughter. He can almost pretend that the tingle in his skin is the sensation left behind by kind, gentle hands running up and down his arms, and not the feeling that comes before the pins and prickles.

“ _His_ name was Dave.” Klaus says longingly, staring at nothing, and Diego stops. “We soldiered together in the A Shau Valley… in the Mountain of the Crouching Beast.”

Diego looks at him. “Well, Dave must have been a very special person…” he says, almost gently, taking it in stride. He goes back to tying his feet. “To put up with all of your weird-ass shit.” he teases, making Klaus snort.

“Yeah,” Klaus chuckles, and it’s a shaky thing. “Yeah, he was…” Dave was a lot of things. Klaus’ universe, to begin with. “He was kind, and strong, and vulnerable, and…” his voice turns into a whisper filled with yearning, “Beautiful. Beautiful. And I was…” he sighs fondly. “Foolish enough to follow him all the way to the front line.”

“You fought in the shit?” Diego grins appreciatively.

“Oh yeah, baby.” Klaus wiggles his eyebrows once and Diego’s smile widens.

“How’d they let you do that?”

“Let me? The war couldn’t take enough bodies, please.” Klaus chuckles, and it feels like his heart is breaking all over again. But then, that would imply it ever stopped doing so. “Including his.”

Across the room, Ben looks away, like he can’t bear to witness Klaus’ pain. Klaus doesn’t blame him; he, too, lost Dave. Maybe not in the same way, and not to the same extent, but he did. Klaus understands this, and he cares, he really does, but he’s just too gone in his own sorrow to be able to soothe his own brother.

Klaus sighs again. “Hey, look at us. Loggin’ in some quality bro time before the end of the world.”

“Yeah, might as well,” Diego says in a low voice. “Everyone I like is already dead.”

“Ah, yes,” Klaus remembers. “The lady cop.”

“Yeah,” Diego says again. Ben stands up abruptly at that, unable to take it anymore. Out of all of them, his is the noblest heart, the most compassionate and empathetic. Klaus doesn’t think he could take having to watch another sibling suffer, let alone two at the same time. Ben takes a few strides before apparating away to wherever it is he goes whenever he’s not with Klaus. “Mom, too. I let them both down.”

Klaus doesn’t think so. He can’t talk for the cop lady, but he can about Mom.

Mom loved all of them, but Klaus knows she loved Diego the most, because Diego loved her the most.

Diego could never do anything to disappoint her, even if he doesn’t believe it himself.

* * *

“Ah, shit!” Klaus whimpers.

Diego turns around instantly. “What?”

Klaus prepares to be murdered. “I need to pee.”

Diego’s alert melts into exasperation.

* * *

When Klaus’ old habits kick in, Diego intervenes and knows what to do. 

He stays firm in the face of Klaus’ bargaining, sets his jaw when Klaus uses his love for Patch and doesn’t hold it against him even as he grits his teeth and warns him not to use her name like that, says he won’t even consider conjuring her spirit until he’s avenged her. 

He proceeds to leave to do just that, but not before making sure the rope is secured.

* * *

“Klaus.”

Klaus wakes up from dozing off, blinks hard until his gaze focuses, until his brain understands his eyes are not fooling him.

He gasps.

“Oh, my god,” Klaus manages between a whimper and a laugh, and is rewarded by that gorgeous, joyful smile he loves so much. “I did it. It worked!” 

Klaus sobs. “ _Dave._ ”

Klaus is crying. Dave is smiling back at him, and for a second there Klaus dares to hope, thinks that maybe everything will be okay.

They can make it work. _They can make it work._ Their love is transformative and transcendental like that.

(But that never really happens.)

* * *

Klaus is officially dead for two whole minutes.

He meets Dad. He doesn’t see Dave.

He wakes up.

Goddammit, Luther.

* * *

Allison is attacked. 

Klaus is horrified. There’s a lot of blood and Luther’s crying. It’s gruesome.

_Jesus Christ._

This family can never catch a break, can it?

* * *

Klaus’ room looks like a tornado tore through it. Where the hell are all his pills?

He needs something, _anything._

There’s no way he can survive this sober.

Ben sighs. “Don’t do it.”

“I’m done listening to you!” Klaus circles on Ben. “Just go away,” he says, before softening his tone. He’s so tired. “Go away, please.”

“I like the sober you,” his brother insists when Klaus turns towards his plushies.

He tears Mx. Velvie’s belly open. “Yeah, well, sobriety’s overrated.”

“Look where it’s gotten you, though,” Ben reasons.

“Well, where _has_ it gotten me?” Klaus argues. “Where has it gotten me? Nowhere.” he’s upset. Of course he’s upset. “I can’t talk to the person I love,” it takes all his power not to burst out into tears at that. Thankfully, he’s angry enough that all his focus is set on venting. “People…” he gestures towards the door, in the general direction the rest of their family is, “still don’t take me seriously.” Klaus looks up at Ben, willing him to understand. “I wanna be numb again.”

Ben does not understand. Or maybe he does, and that’s why he does the exact opposite of what Klaus just asked him.

“You’re a colossal wimp,” Ben states flatly, eyes narrowed.

Klaus internally rolls his eyes and goes back to his business. “Oh yeah, really?”

“Yeah, really!” Ben says, but Klaus ignores him. Ben then snaps his fingers at him to catch his attention before saying, “Life isn’t supposed to be easy. Life is hard,” he says sternly. “Bad things happen. Good people die.”

“Wow, playing the dead card again, huh?” Klaus says, and only feels slightly guilty at the moment. “You need new material, bro.”

Ben throws him a bucket of ice cold water. “I was talking about Dave.”

Klaus feels his throat closing and his eyes watering. He swallows through the lump and blinks away the tears, focuses on Mx. Velvie’s insides.

“You know, I’m tired of seeing you wallow in self-defeat,” Ben says seriously.

Klaus stands. “Well, then avert your gaze.”

“You’re better than that,” Ben goes straight for the jugular. “And Dave? He knew it, too.”

Klaus stares miserably at his brother. It feels like he’s falling apart. 

He sighs. “Yeah, you’re right,” Klaus says, looking down at his feet. He looks back up at Ben. “You’re right. I’m—I’m—I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

* * *

Ben punches him on the face–

_Ben punches him on the face._

For the first time since arriving, Klaus feels grounded.

(He lets go of the drugs.)

* * *

Shit happens. Turns out Vanya _has_ powers.

Klaus thinks Luther is a fucking idiot and he’s insane, but he keeps his stronger opinions to himself. It helps that Ben rolls his eyes so hard Klaus just knows he thinks the same. His brother’s expression is mostly marred by concern and incredulity at Luther’s actions.

He’s worried about Vanya, but if not even Allison is able to get through to Luther, what chance does _Klaus_ have?

* * *

He was right about being worried.

Vanya’s pissed, rightfully so.

She was right when she called them assholes.

All of them are idiots. What else is new?

* * *

It’s as Klaus is running for his life on a bowling lane that it occurs to him Dave would have _loved_ bowling.

He wants to laugh hysterically. He mostly wants to cry.

He keeps running instead.

* * *

They play lookout for ten minutes until Klaus’ stomach growls, and it throws him for a loop so hard that for a moment all he can do is stare at it in surprise until Ben ushers him eagerly towards the food car conveniently located right across the street.

Klaus isn’t as stupid as his brother likes to say. He knows he hasn’t eaten since arriving here. (In fact, his last food was a shared can of beans and a can of ham split between Dave and him as they sat on a hard mattress, smiling at each other with bright eyes under the thin, raggedy blankets the night before he died.)

Truth is, he hasn’t had the head to think about it, let alone the appetite for it. So he buys a hotdog under Ben’s overprotective, watchful eye, and eats half of it before the gunshots register in their ears.

* * *

For someone who claims to need only himself, Five sure is desperate to save their little dysfunctional family. Klaus can’t bring himself to scorn him; he would, after all, do the same in his place. 

Maybe.

(Right now all Klaus can think about is how close he would be from seeing Dave again if the world ended.)

* * *

His brother has a last resort.

They take it.

* * *

(They make it just in time to escape the apocalypse.)

* * *

They're back in the sixties.

Klaus can’t believe they’re back in the sixties.

* * *

(The first thing he does with help of his newfound cult is look for Dave and pray to a God he doesn’t believe in he hasn’t been drafted yet.)

* * *

(He hasn’t.)

* * *

Klaus is laughing at something Diego says while Ben watches them in exasperation but just as equally amused when they exit Klaus’ favorite diner, a strawberry milkshake in hand.

He isn’t paying attention to where he’s going; it’s the first time in weeks he’s felt anything other than weary. (He’s getting progressively tired of fighting his demons when the only thing anchoring him isn’t there anymore.)

So he’s not really minding where he’s going, and is because he isn’t paying any attention that he promptly and quite literally runs into someone.

They stumble a few steps and some of Klaus’ milkshake spills, but he cares more about not getting into trouble than his shake, even if he’s sad about it.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking. Are you okay–” Klaus stops abruptly, freezing when he sees the face of the person he’s stumbled into.

* * *

(Klaus’ life restarts outside of a diner in Wisconsin.)

* * *

“Hello,” Klaus says dazedly as he steadies the other person. “I’m Klaus.”

Dave stares at him puzzled for a second, before a thoughtful look crosses his face.

“Hi,” he says with that sunny smile of his, the one with pearly teeth that never fails to take Klaus’ breath away. “I’m Dave. Have we met before?”

Ben is smiling widely. Diego is grinning like a loon.

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something new with all the parenthesis.
> 
> If you hear something strange don’t mind it, it’s just me sweeping the pieces of the broken heart s1 left me with plus the sounds of my barely contained sobs.
> 
> Now, off to watch season two! (Didn’t wanna do it in case it affected my editing.)


End file.
